News

Long-term FSM pupils in new Opportunity Areas 20+ months behind peers

New research has been published which shows the extent of the progress gap between disadvantaged children and their more affluent peers in the least socially mobile areas of the country.

For children in the Government’s new Opportunity Areas, identified by the DfE to receive £60m of interventions, children in receipt of Free School Meals are as many as 20.1 months of progress behind in their education.

The report – Progress in Priority Areas – identifies significant shortcomings in local authority areas where performance is poor and access to school-led interventions including Teaching Schools and NLEs are limited.

In the recent White Paper Educational Excellence Everywhere, the DfE grouped all of England’s 324 lower tier and unitary local authority areas according to “local performance and capacity to improve” – group 1 being the highest performing with the greatest capacity; group 6 the lowest performing and least capacity.

Progess in Priority Areas identified a progress gap of 15.1 months for persistently disadvantaged pupils in groups 5 and 6. Schools in these areas are also more likely to have worse Ofsted ratings for Leadership and Management and to see these ratings fall.

Progess in Priority Areas was published on Tuesday to mark the launch of Ambition School Leadership, which has been formed by the merging of Teaching Leaders and The Future Leaders Trust. The research was carried out in collaboration with the Education Policy Institute (EPI).

The 12 North East local authorities were designated to the following groups:

The EPI analysis for Ambition School Leadership shows that between 2010 and 2015:

• Disadvantaged pupils have always experienced a larger progress gap in areas 5 and 6 and Opportunity Areas than in areas 1 and 2; this gap is currently twice as large in areas 5 and 6 as in areas 1 and 2.
• In areas 5 and 6, this progress gap closed slightly between 2010 and 2013 but increased in 2014 before reaching 14.9 months in 2015: 0.2 months larger than in 2010. This is in line with the national trend.
• The progress gap has grown even more in Opportunity Areas – between 2010 and 2015, it has grown by 3.6 months for non-disadvantaged pupils, 6.4 months for disadvantaged pupils and 8.3 months for persistently disadvantaged pupils in these areas.
• The progress gap for persistently disadvantaged pupils has remained over 15.1 months in areas 5 and 6, but grown from 11.8 months to 20.1 months in Opportunity Areas in this period.

In analysing Ofsted ratings for Leadership and Management, the report finds the following:

• There was a ten percentage point difference between the proportion of schools rated Good or Outstanding for Leadership and Management in areas 1 and 2 compared to areas 5 and 6 and Opportunity Areas in March 2016.
• Leadership and Management has improved in all areas since March 2010 but was less likely to improve in individual schools in areas 5 and 6 or in Opportunity Areas.
• Leadership and Management was twice as likely to fall from Good or Outstanding to Inadequate or Requires Improvement in areas 5 and 6 compared to areas 1 and 2. It was even more likely to fall in Opportunity Areas.
• Schools in Opportunity Areas and areas 5 and 6 have worse ratings for Leadership and Management.

The report concludes that “action is needed to increase the number of high quality leaders in these areas and to support those who are already in post, so they have enough leaders who are capable of driving the improvements in school performance so urgently needed”.